“Me? I’d have a separate account she didn’t know about, maybe a bank box, too. And, if I’m rich like this asshole, I’ve got a place she doesn’t know about. If I had a place when I was cheating with her, it’s gone, sold, done when I’m cheating on her. Anything I did cheating with her, I switch up now.”
“A place. A place,” she murmured. “Like Edward Mira had the hotel. His wife knew he cheated, so he didn’t have to worry about it. Wymann wasn’t married—I’m still waiting for Roarke to tell me if he used the hotel. We’ll do the same with Betz. But, a place. A place just for sex. You can only have it here when your wife’s out of town, and you really like cheating.
“He’d need a key, a swipe, codes, something. And he wouldn’t keep it in a desk drawer, even a locked one, where his wife might get to it.”
She opened a door, looked into a red and silver powder room, turned and studied the bar in the corner of the office.
“I bet I know where she doesn’t go.”
Eve walked out, jogged downstairs, back into the master.
She found Peabody and McNab beside the huge red (naturally) bed with its avalanche of pillows. They had a look in their eyes, but fortunately for them nobody’s hands were on anybody’s ass.
“I don’t think anybody broke in a second-story window.”
“Nobody broke in anywhere,” McNab told her. “Two other doors on the main, and neither of them have been opened for twenty-six hours. The windows haven’t been opened for weeks. I figured I’d take the ’links and comps in here.”
“Is that what you figured?”
He grinned. “Abso-true. And hang with She-Body while I’m at it.”
Saying nothing, she walked over, looked into the hers bathroom.
As she suspected, it was filled with frills and a carnival full of pink.
The cleaning crew had started there, so fresh pink towels and white towels with pink edging were stacked on a painted bench or hung on a standing rack. Surfaces—all pink and white—shined, and the air gave off a faint whiff of citrus. Jars of various girl products stood on the long counter between two pink vessel sinks. The faucets were silver mermaids, and that motif was repeated in the triple-glass shower.
In addition to the divan—pink-and-white stripes—there was a curvy vanity; drawers full of creams, lotions, enhancements; a closet filled with various robes and slippers; a mini AutoChef and friggie built into the wall.
The toilet rated its own little room with mermaid art and a wall screen.
She stepped back out. “Have you been in there?”
“Yeah. Any woman would kill for a bathroom that size all her own. But she showed how even that mag space can be ruined.”
“Her side. Her bath, her closet/dressing room, her sitting room, her side of the bed, her dresser—the one with all the pink bottles. Right?”
“Yeah. His side.” Peabody jerked a thumb. “You know they’ve got a toddler, but you don’t see any kid stuff in here. Not even a stray teddy bear. It’s a little sad.”
“When your nanny has a helper, you don’t spend a lot of time with the kid, and this space is adults only. With a definite line of demarcation. Anyway, you’re the woman of the house.”
“I’m the queen of my castle,” Peabody agreed, and got a wink from McNab.
“This house, Peabody. Keep up. You’ve got staff and servants, and three floors to decorate into terrible death. Where’s the one room you don’t go into?”
“The doll room. Okay, that’s just me. She must like dolls. Well, from my brief conversation with her, I’d cross off the laundry facilities. That’s staff territory. And she probably doesn’t go into the kitchen much.”
“Try this. What’s the one place he goes you don’t go?”
“I . . . his bathroom!” Peabody shot her two index fingers in the air. “She’s all pink and shiny in hers, and his is full of man. What woman wants to go into a bathroom after a guy?”
“We do all right,” McNab said.
“Abso-true.” But when his back was turned again, Peabody rolled her eyes at Eve. “You’re thinking potential hidey-hole.”
“Let’s check it out.”
If the hers bathroom was an explosion of pink and fuss, the his was a study in desperate masculinity. Black tile with red flashes covered the floors, the walls. The odd addition of a bar—red, with cherub carvings—along one wall stood before a portrait of a zaftig reclining woman eating a fat purple plum. The black counter held a large square of red sink with a wolf’s head faucet that would vomit out the water.
Shelves held bottles and bowls, the manly versions of creams and lotions and oils, as they were all cased in red or black leather.
The rest of the wolf pack occupied the shower, where they’d spit out water from the showerhead and jets.
The drying tube had a padded bench, in case its occupant grew too tired and needed to rest in the two minutes it took to dry most humans.
He had a vanity of his own, fashioned to resemble a desk. Peabody started there.
“I think this may be uglier than hers, but it’s neck and neck,” Peabody said. “Wow, he’s got as many face and body enhancements in here as she does—almost. Big on the tanners and bronzers, and hair products. This vanity’s an eyesore, Dallas, but it’s well-constructed. I’m not finding anything out of proportion, nothing that looks like a secret compartment.”
“How about the bar?” Eve circled around it. “You’ve got a good eye for compartments.”
It was how Peabody had first come to her notice, as a uniform finding a hidey-hole in a murderer’s apartment.
“Well. Again, really good work wasted on the ugly.”
Peabody swiveled on the vanity stool, studied the bar from that perspective. “All that carving—I mean it mirrors what they’ve got all through the house, but it’s also the kind of thing that can hide a mechanism. And a cabinetmaker this good? He could hide one really well. My dad’s done some totally mag hideys.”
She angled her head as Eve ran her hands over cherubs. “Maybe microgoggles would help—if there’s anything to see.”
“Go get some from the field kits.”
Eve hunkered down, putting aside how odd it was to rub her fingers all over fat, naked butts.
Wouldn’t be on the front face, she decided. What if someone inadvertently hit the release? If there was one.
She straightened, moved around the back.
Glasses and mixers and liquor on shelves, and a single cabinet with the carved front. She opened it, peered in at the ice machine, the wine friggie.
Closed it again, opened it. Closed it.
“Got the goggles.”
“Why have a door in front of the ice-maker thing, the wine friggie? Anytime you want ice, you have to open the door. Everything else is on open shelves. Handy.”
“Could just be the design. Or he didn’t want the mechanics to show.”
“Maybe. But how deep are these units? They wouldn’t be the depth of the bar, right?”
Now Peabody hunkered down beside her. “Dad and Zeke have made some nice bars—fully outfitted, custom. One this size . . . Seems like the ice deal wouldn’t need that much depth.”
Eve closed the door again, wiggled her fingers for the goggles. With them on, she began to scan inch by inch.
“This one.” Eyes huge behind the goggles, Peabody gripped a cherub butt between her fingers. It turned fractionally.
“Why does it turn and not open any damn thing?”
“A code or a pattern,” Peabody muttered, “like a puzzle. Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen this kind of thing. We have to figure out which ones to turn, in what order. It’s pretty damn clever. It’s really good work.”
“I’m getting a hammer.”
“No!” Sincerely appalled, Peabody scooted over. “I can figure it out. Give me a little room. You can’t bust up this kind of work.”
“It’s fucking ugly.”
“It’s still art. Here! Here’s another. I bet there’s three. A combo of three. We’ve got this.”
Eve would’ve preferred the hammer, but since she didn’t have one handy, she let Peabody tap and twist and rub cherubs.
“Hey, Dallas?” McNab stepped to the doorway. “I’ve got a transmission from Marshall Easterday, unanswered. It came in today, at eight-fifty-two.”
“Right after we talked to him,” Eve said. “About the time he went upstairs ‘to rest.’”